February 2014

February 10, 2014

Thank you for your contributions to the haberdashery discussion. It's such a wonderful word in every context and the reason I asked is because I'd really like to use it in a book title, but have been told that it would cause problems. I'm not sure I agree and think the comments show just how much interest unusual words can generate even where there are multiple meanings. Anyway, if the creative world can accommodate Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes , 'haberdashery' can't really be that fraught with danger.

I am very unsuggestible. If someone tells me I should read The Last Runaway, it's the last thing I'll read. I might know that it has quilts and Quakers in it and is right up my street, but I won't read it until all pressure to read it is off. Which is why I read it covertly a couple of weeks ago and couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. It's a fine read, and I loved the way quilts and methods of quilting are described, put together and used as metaphors.

I also read How to be a Heroine (probably because no-0ne told me I should). I'm a Jane Eyre person and simply can't stand Cathy in Wuthering Heights, so I start out on the opposite side of the Jane/Cathy heroine debate to Samantha Ellis. I enjoyed this book, but what I admired most were her readings of so many classics which were fresh, clever and perceptive. I liked the element of looking for a heroine role-model less, especially in the matter of love, and wondered why SE pursued the idea of looking for one for so long (way into her thirties) instead of learning to trust her intellect and instincts.

I taught a quilting workshop at Ray Stitch yesterday, hence the cutting out of bits and pieces of fabric on Saturday. It was a very productive and enjoyable day. There's another one coming up on Sunday 13 April. If you want to get moving with your quilts and/or want to experiment with different fabrics, do have a look at the details. I can promise a good time with fabric and machines.

[I can't write 'bits and pieces' without singing and thinking of the Dave Clark Five. ]

February 07, 2014

Today's the day that The Gentle Art of Domesticity becomes widely and easily available via Amazon, Kobo, Nook and e-book stores. This is after a number of years of the hardback being expensive and difficult to find, and several publishing problems which were frustrating to watch from the position of author.

But now the book is mine again, and I am the publisher this time. It sounds grand, it feels grand, and I'm very happy to see it back on the bookshelf, even if that bookshelf is virtual. It would be very costly to reprint and I'd need to know there's a big demand for it to make that option worthwhile. While I appreciate many people love the feel and look of this title as a real book, I think it's better to republish it as an e-book and get it out into the world again rather than hold onto the idea of a physical book and have it hidden from view.

And I have to say I am pleased with the way it looks on a reading screen. I've worked with Acorn Digital Press who have done all the technical work, and from the start we agreed that the e-book had to look as good technically possible - with the added bonus of being able to adjust the font size to make reading even easier. As for the photos, they really shine and work well in this format as, of course, they were digital in the first place.

Although some authors might take the opportunity to edit when they are preparing a book for republication, I decided that the book needed to stay exactly as it was when it first came out. I have, however, taken the opportunity to make a few necessary corrections (typos etc) and add an index, but otherwise it's the original, UK edition.* (The book was 'americanized' for the US edition, unecessarily I thought, as I was and remain quite sure that US readers are more than capable of reading books by English authors exactly as they were written, but I didn't have a say in the matter.)

The e-book has a new introduction, the full original text, much-used and frequently requested recipes for rock buns, flapjacks, biscuits and more, an index and a search function so that you can easily look up, say, 'buttons' or 'quilts' or 'tulips', and an updated resources section with details of shops, books, websites, and sources of inspiration.

I'm so pleased that technology has made the publication of this book possible. It's a book with a history and a back-story of its own, and I know from what many people have told me that it has changed lives which is a pretty incredible thing for me to grasp. I'm delighted to republish it.

* there is only one edition of the e-book and this is the original, UK edition, so no matter where in the world you buy it, it will be the same edition, same text, same everything.

February 06, 2014

These days I prefer to read reviews after I've seen a film or read a book. This way I'm not predisposed or prejudiced in some way, and I have to make an effort to decide what I think - not whether someone else was right, wrong or the writer/director's best friend. I decide what to see or read by scanning column inches and headlines, by recommendations, and by hearing bits and pieces on the radio. Obviously, I'm not completely in the dark about what I'm about to see or read, but I'm pretty sketchy.

I went to see Inside Llewyn Davis yesterday. We'd just watched The Man Who Wasn't There at the weekend so I was ready for more Coen Brothers' melancholy and dark humour and brilliant cinematography. Well, this has all of those things. It has great music, brilliant performances, and every frame is beautifully composed, lit and coloured. It's an intelligent film full of classical allusions and references, many patterns and plenty of subtext and it's also, I thought, incredibly sad.

But what's fantastic is that it has given rise to some seriously good, well-written reviews. I imagine film critics have to go through the motions so often (what do you say about the nth Harry Potter film?) that they must wonder if they'll ever be able to flex their writing muscles. Well, Inside Llewyn Davis has clearly given critics an opportunity to show just what they can do, and has allowed them to share depths of knowledge and analysis that many films don't inspire - or warrant. My favourite reviews for insight are in the Guardian, the Telegraph and the FT. I'm not saying read them now, but perhaps after seeing the film.

(Inside Llewyn Davis should really be seen by anyone who saw and enjoyed Frances Ha. Lots to compare and contrast there.]

February 04, 2014

Quick question. In this country and many others a haberdashery is a shop or department selling all the stuff you need for sewing and needlework: needes, threads, pins, scissors, fabrics, tape measures, ribbons, buttons, trimmings etc.. In the US, however, a haberdashery is traditionally a shop or department selling mens' accessories such as gloves, hats, ties, belts etc.. I'm wondering if that's still strictly the case, and whether these days crafters and quilters and dressmakers in the US understand a haberdashery to be a store or website that carries the goods they need?

Basically, I'd really like to know if there's a problem with the word 'haberdashery' in the context of making and crafting, particularly where the word is historically associated with menswear? I'd be very grateful for any thoughts on the matter. Thank you.

February 03, 2014

[Morning by Amy Katherine Browning, in Luton Culture collection, purchased from the artist in 1955)

This bright, light Monday morning I put this bright, light morning painting on my Facebook page then wished I'd put it here where I can see it better without all the Facebook clutter. It's still morning in San Francisco, so I feel justified in posting it this late in the day.

February 02, 2014

I must have known that Stockport is full of steps when I was growing up there, but I'd never fully realised what a multi-level town it is.

[split level town]

There are steep steps, wide steps, narrow steps, stone steps, cobbled steps. Steps with specific names, steps with handrails, pavements that become steps, vast steps up the to art gallery, magnificent steps up to the town hall, tall steps up to the market, winding steps down to pubs and fish and chips shops, and red brick steps with a plaque down to the bus station. Even the hospital is called Stepping Hill.

[Town Hall steps]

Many parts of Stockport were wrecked in the 1960s, but thankfully the steps in the centre remained. They are vital links between the old bits - the market, the shops, the churches, the pubs - and create a sense of connection. Unfortunately though these links and connections no longer extend beyond small area that covers the old centre perched on a hill and the newer shopping areas below.

[Art Gallery/War Memorial steps]

So unless you make a real effort to get to them, you'd never know that Stockport has some wonderfully interesting and historically significant buildings not so far form the epicentre of the market and Merseyway, just a short walk up more hills and slopes to the parts that were mostly demolished and erased, then either filled with busy roads and anonymous buildings or simply left to rot.

[Mealhouse Brow,Stockport]

There's an amazing Grade I listed Waterloo/Commissioners' church which was designed by the architect responsible for the Fitzwilliam Museum. There's an immensely forbidding, soot-covered late C19/Arts and Crafts church with a tremendously tall, dark spire which always gave me the shivers but which is actually far more pink and far less sombre close up. There's a 1925 Art Gallery and War Memorial (with not a single painting from the council-owned collection on display), many vast and beautiful red-brick mills dotted about as reminders of the town's cotton and hat-making heritage, and a madly ornate town hall that was admired by John Betjeman and contrasts wildly with the severely classical 1830s infirmary opposite. Then there are pink brick mill-owners' houses, fiery red brick schools, several pubs with important interiors, and even two listed tram shelters.

I spent a couple of hours on Friday wandering around Stockport with a map and my list of things to look for and at, and in retracing my own earlier footsteps (and those of Lowry who painted various Stockport steps) I discovered much more in the hills, mills, steps and brows than I'd ever seen before.